Zombie Rabbit

Yu Xian's physical conditioning grew stronger almost every day. Along with it, his five senses sharpened as well. Even without using Silver Blood to enhance his sense of smell, he could easily distinguish many scents now—he was especially, acutely sensitive to any odor related to blood. The girl downstairs seemed to sense Yu Xian's gaze. Her pace suddenly quickened, and she vanished into the classroom building in the blink of an eye. "That's Wang Qian. She's from the Wu race, and supposedly very good at curses. Don't either of you go trying to hit on her," Chen Ling chimed in. Zhang Shou exclaimed in shock, "Chen Ling, are you really not a Transcendent? How is it there's practically nothing you don't know?" "Doggo, you've changed. You don't even call me My Queen anymore." With an inscrutable look, Chen Ling patted Zhang Shou on the shoulder and spoke with lingering nuance. Zhang Shou instantly switched gears, smiling ingratiatingly. "Then, My Queen, are you a Transcendent?" "Guess!" Chen Ling smiled mysteriously. In truth, she simply loved gossip and had joined tons of student club group chats, nothing more. Yu Xian could tell whether someone was a Transcendent just from their scent. Facing Zhang Shou's suspicion, he merely smiled without speaking, quietly watching the students downstairs. "Hey there, handsome!" Just then, a girl who looked both pure and sensual suddenly tilted her head up and called out a greeting to Yu Xian. She had short, wine-red hair, and a tail trailed from beneath her skirt. Yu Xian only gave a slight nod, keeping his mouth shut. This girl was one of the targets Jin Sheng had asked him and Zhang Shou to keep an eye on: Hu Tu'er. She carried the Nine-Tailed Fox bloodline. Her family ran a bathhouse, and her father, Hu Weijie, was a well-known cleaner on the gray path. If anyone was most likely to stir up trouble, her father definitely counted among them. Today, however, there was nothing unusual about Hu Tu'er's scent. If her father had truly done something in secret, as long as he had been in contact with Hu Tu'er, Yu Xian would be able to catch the trail through the scent lingering on her. Right up until the bell rang for class, none of the other students showed any signs of trouble. The only one under suspicion was Wang Qian of the Wu race. *** Night fell. Zhang Shou drove while Yu Xian sat in the passenger seat, knitting a sweater. "Seven-thirty. Codename Salty Fish, codename Dead Doctor, beginning patrol now." Zhang Shou tapped his phone to open the Public Security Bureau's patrol app, then focused on driving. Along the route near the city wall of Silver City, traffic was extremely sparse, and the sidewalks on either side were devoid of even a shadow of a person. After driving along the patrol route for an hour, let alone a Transcendent beast, they hadn't seen a single ordinary animal. Zhang Shou yawned in boredom. Seeing Yu Xian still engrossed in knitting his sweater, he grumbled, "I thought night patrol would be thrilling, but it turns out to be dead boring. If this keeps up, I'm afraid I'll fall asleep." "It's fine. Once you fall asleep, I'll just shoot you. You haven't died yet today, right?" Yu Xian chuckled. Once Zhang Shou's condition reset, his day-and-night rhythm would invert. Because his skill had recorded his state in the morning, reviving would be equivalent to having just woken up from a solid sleep, fully restored and energized. Of course, if he stayed up until tomorrow morning, he would probably end up sleeping through the entire day. "Whoa, Salty Fish, when did you become so vicious?" Hearing Yu Xian's inhumane remark, Zhang Shou put on a show of horror. Yu Xian smiled and was about to reply when his ears suddenly twitched. With a flick of the finger he had been knitting with, a silver thread shot out the car window in an instant. "Stop the car," he said. Zhang Shou pulled over at once. The two pushed open their doors and got out, walking over to the right side of the road. In the roadside grass, a two-meter-long venomous snake with a drill-like horn on its head had already been sliced cleanly in two, its lower half still writhing. "One merit point in the bag." Yu Xian snapped a photo with his phone first, then retrieved a retrieval bag from the back seat and used a pair of tongs to place the snake inside. Zhang Shou shone a high-powered flashlight into the grass with one hand while holding his gun ready in the other, prepared to fire at a moment's notice. "No need to search. That was the only venomous snake here. Who knows how it slipped into the city," Yu Xian remarked with a laugh. This truly was bizarre. A fifteen-meter-tall wall encircled the perimeter of Silver City. Beyond the wall were military barracks. Logically, it should have been utterly impossible for these animals to bypass both barriers and enter the city. Yet in reality, animals kept cropping up from who knew where, as if materializing out of thin air. Then again, it wasn't all that surprising either—much like how people living dozens of floors up in high-rise buildings still found cockroaches infesting their homes, with no one able to explain where they came from. Perhaps animals, like life itself, would always find a way. The two climbed back into the car and resumed driving. About half an hour later, a dark shadow darted out from the grass, and Zhang Shou slammed on the brakes. They bolted from the car in unison, racing after the silhouette. "A rabbit! Might be Insect rank. I'm going ahead!" Yu Xian accelerated instantly, leaving Zhang Shou in the dust in the blink of an eye. Zhang Shou ran for a stretch before finally halting, gasping for air. "When we're done, I'm eating rabbit meat!" he wheezed. Before he could catch his breath, another dark shadow flashed past nearby. "Another one?" Zhang Shou's eyes widened, and he spun around to look behind him. Across the road lay an expanse of grass ending at a river; past the river was a patch of woods, and beyond that stretched the city wall. "Where on earth are these rabbits coming from?" Zhang Shou muttered to himself and started walking back. He was determined to search the grass and see if there was a burrow hidden somewhere. On the other side, the rabbit was fast, but Yu Xian was faster. The gap between them shrank steadily. A streak of Blood Energy surfaced in Yu Xian's hand; then, with a flick of his finger, a silver thread enveloped in Blood Energy shot forth, piercing right through the rabbit in the blink of an eye. The silver thread then churned violently, shredding all the bones, muscle, and sinew inside the rabbit's body. Blood Energy had a vast range of applications, and he had been studying them continuously. Just now, he had used Blood Energy to boost the kinetic energy of the silver thread, making it shoot faster and hit with far greater power. "The feel just now... wasn't quite right." Looking at the rabbit, which was still twitching, Yu Xian frowned slightly. He walked slowly over to the fallen rabbit and flipped it over with a silver thread to inspect it. The creature possessed a pair of protruding fangs and gave off a dense, foul aura of corpse qi. A zombie rabbit! Yu Xian caught his breath, then hurriedly bound it tighter with silver thread. If this thing bit an ordinary person, it would mean serious trouble. Carrying the rabbit, he walked back toward the road, only to find Zhang Shou rummaging through the grass. Stepping forward, he asked, "What are you looking for?" "A rabbit hole. Huh? Why is there only one? I saw another one dash past behind me just now—didn't you run into it?" Zhang Shou replied, glancing at the rabbit in Yu Xian's hand as he asked. Yu Xian froze. There was another one? He dashed over to the car, pulled out a corpse collection bag plastered with talismans from the back seat, stuffed the zombie rabbit inside, tied it tight, and immediately sprinted back. Normally, he avoided using Silver Blood to enhance his sense of smell—the mortal world was thick with ten thousand foul odors, and enduring such a barrage of stench was unbearable. Now, however, he had no choice. If that zombie rabbit bit someone, disaster would follow. All the more so because some people didn't seek a doctor right away after getting bitten. They would cling to wishful thinking, believing they could cure themselves, only to end up harming themselves and others alike, triggering a catastrophe.